Web Marketing News

The Many Ways of Viral Marketing

In the beginning, e-mail was the one way that viral marketing
was started. Since that long ago day, viral marketing has gone
from a marketing strategy to an art form and there are many
ways to accomplish the objective of creating a successful viral
marketing campaign. Seven of those ways are:

1. E-mail: It was first but it is still around and still
used. It is, however, getting a little harder to use as more
and more government restrictions are placed on it. Still… it
does work.

2. Newsletters: This is an extension of e-mail but it a
very effective tool. If you include enough timely and valuable
information, a good newsletter can drive up the number of visits
to your website.

3. Blogging: Providing the tools on your website to enable
bloggers to interact with one another is a terrific way to get
the message about your product of service out there and being
talked about. Bloggers have their ears to the ground for new
products and services.

4. Chat Rooms: A chat room on your website can and does
encourage interaction among your customers and that can’t be
a bad thing. Also, you can use the chat room to schedule special
events like having an expert available to answer questions on
a given day at a given time.

5. Tell-a-friend Script: If you add this with a statement
saying that e-mail addresses supplied will never be shared with
third parties, you can increase your potential customer list
greatly.

6. Video Clips: Including cool video clips on your website
will keep the interest up and increase traffic.

7. Flash Games: Although they are a little costly to start,
they are an extremely effective tool to get your viral marketing
campaign going. Once they are launched, they require nothing more
from you.

If your trying to pull your own newsletter together then take a minute to read this blog post about setting up your own electronic newsletter.

Why and How E-mail Viral Marketing Works

What does a virus have to do with marketing?

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals
to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for
exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like
viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to
explode the message to thousands and then to millions.

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from
people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your
eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to
transmit.

Viral e-mail marketing works great on the Internet because instant
communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format
make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you simplify
your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without
degradation.

Short is better.

Remember the K.I.S.S. standard….Keep it Simple Stupid.  The shorter
and easier to remember is always better than long and complicated.

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human
motivations. The desire to be cool and greed drives people. So does
the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge
to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail
messages.

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science
grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each
person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of
friends, family, and associates. People on the Internet develop
networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and
favorite website URLs.

Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail
lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications
between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

If you can design a marketing strategy that builds on common
motivations and behaviors for its transmission, you have a winner.